


North and South

by rosefox



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Goodbyes, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 07:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosefox/pseuds/rosefox
Summary: The night before they leave Winterfell, Arya can't sleep.





	North and South

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kurage_hime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurage_hime/gifts).



For once Arya was glad that her mother hated Jon. Bran and Rickon shared a room, and Robb and Jon ought to as well, but Lady Stark refused to have a bastard sleep next to the heir to Winterfell. So Jon had a room of his own—not as nice as Robb's, of course, but tonight, privacy was what mattered.

She took a breath and knocked gently on his door.

She heard his footsteps, and the click of Ghost's nails as the direwolf followed him across the room. The iron latch clinked, and he opened the door just enough to see who was there. When his eyes met hers, he smiled. "Come in, little sister," he said.

Arya followed him in and set her candle on his bedside table as he latched the door again. She looked around, adding to her store of Winterfell memories. The room was sparsely furnished—a bed, a chair by the window, a small table, a wardrobe, a few shaggy sheepskins scattered over the floor—and, as always, scrupulously neat. Ghost sniffed her hand and then curled up on the rug by the bed, nearly vanishing against the white wool. 

A trunk sat near the door, already full and buckled shut. She glared at it.

"I don't want to leave!" she burst out.

Jon sat on the edge of the bed. He pointed to the space beside him, but Arya shook her head. She was too angry to sit still. She'd been too angry to lie still either, too angry to sleep. Fortunately almost nothing could wake Sansa once she was snoring, so it had been easy for Arya to slip out of bed, tug on her dressing gown, whisper "Stay!" to Nymeria, and tiptoe down the hall. (Sansa even _slept_ perfectly. It was unbearable.)

Someone else might have told her it was her duty to obey her father, or spun stories of the excitement awaiting her in the south. Jon knew better, which was why she'd come to him. "Of course you don't want to leave," he said.

" _You_ want to leave." She knew she was being unfair, but everything was unfair and horrible tonight.

Jon shifted uncomfortably. "Yes and no," he said. "I want to join the Watch, and that means I have to leave. But I always thought you'd be here and I could visit now and again, the way Benjen does. I don't want to be so far from you."

Somehow that took all the fight out of her. She sighed and sat on the bed next to him, daring to stroke one bare foot over Ghost's soft fur. The direwolf tolerated this, so she did it again. "I don't want to be far from you either," she said. "We ought to be a pack, like the wolves."

"We'll always be a pack," he said. "No matter how far apart we are."

She leaned against him and yawned. Sleep was starting to catch up with her at last. "You'll be awfully bored up on the Wall, won't you?"

He smiled down at her. "Not half as bored as you'll be in King's Landing, doing needlework with Princess Myrcella."

"Ugh!" Arya wrinkled her nose. "I wish I could join the Watch too. Then at least we could be bored together."

"You're too skinny."

"Am not! I bet they take skinny people and fat people and all kinds of people. They let killers and thieves take the black." Arya sighed. "But no girls."

"King's Landing is hardly a death sentence," Jon said.

"It _feels_ like one." She blinked away sudden tears, because talk of death made her think of her brother, lying still and silent in his bed. "And... and I'll be far away from Bran. And Robb and Rickon. And Mother. And you. And Winterfell and _everything_."

Jon put his arm around her and hugged her close. "Write me letters," he said. "I'll write to you. Share some of that southron sunshine with me when I'm shivering on the Wall."

Arya sniffled and rubbed her eyes. "Only if you send back northern cold. I don't want to be warm and sweaty all the time."

Jon laughed. "Can you imagine Sansa's face the first time she sweats through a dress?"

Arya pictured it, and giggled. Then she yawned again.

Jon gave her another hug and gently nudged her off the bed. "Go sleep, little sister," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Promise you won't leave without saying good-bye?"

"I promise," he said.

"You sleep too," she said, suddenly sure he'd been as restless as she. "You have a long ride tomorrow."

He smiled a little. "I'll do what I can."

She bent down and gave Ghost her hand to sniff again as Jon unlatched the door. "I'll miss you too," she told the wolf. "I wish you could write letters to Nymeria."

"Go to _bed_ , Arya."

"All right, all right." She stood and wobbled, feeling the exhaustion of the past three weeks land on her at once.

Jon guided her to the doorway. "Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight, big brother," she whispered. She wrapped her arms around him one last time. He ruffled her hair.

She started down the dark corridor, then stopped. "My candle!" She darted into the room to get it, and then back out before Jon could chide her. He grinned at her and she smiled back. For a moment, everything was just the way it had always been.

Then she lifted the candle bravely, as though she were a sworn sister of the Night's Watch confronting the dark beyond the Wall, and went forward into the unknown.


End file.
